Americans fled cities in waves during the pandemic, right? Not to so fast.
Writing for the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, Riordan Frost presents the latest change-of-address data from the United States Postal Service to shed a little more light on one of the dominant narratives of the pandemic: that Americans moved en masse away from cities during the pandemic.
According to Frost, "change-of-address requests submitted to the US Postal Service (USPS) indicate that while an unusually large number of people did move early in the pandemic and again in late 2020, there has not been a significant change from prior years in the total number of moves since the pandemic began."
"The data, moreover, show notable increases in the number of individuals who moved but decreases in the number of families that moved," adds Frost.
The amount of moving during the pandemic is even compared to a low bar: "the share of Americans moving each year has been falling for several decades," notes Frost.
A lot more detail on the methodology and findings of this data analysis are available in the source article below.
FULL STORY: HAVE MORE PEOPLE MOVED DURING THE PANDEMIC?
Measuring the Urban Exodus
New data reveals truths about one of the biggest questions to emerge from the pandemic: Did the public health risks and economic disruptions of 2020 and 2021 spur an urban exodus away from the urban cores of large metropolitan areas?
The Demographics of San Francisco’s Pandemic Urban Exodus
New Census data break down San Francisco’s population losses during the first year-plus of the pandemic by race and age.
Americans Are Moving, but Staying Close to Home
Despite fears of a mass exodus, most cities are seeing only modest population losses, with the majority of movers staying in the same metro area.
Analysis: Cybertruck Fatality Rate Far Exceeds That of Ford Pinto
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National Parks Layoffs Will Cause Communities to Lose Billions
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Analysis: Cybertruck Fatality Rate Far Exceeds That of Ford Pinto
The Tesla Cybertruck was recalled seven times last year.
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